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It's back again! In keeping with Valentine's Day and UFV theatre's production of "Romeo and Juliet," we've put Romantic poetry under the spotlight in the Chilliwack campus library. We've added a few fun, different books to the display, like "Shelley's first love," about Harriet Grove, who was Shelley's wife and pregnant with their child when Shelley took up with Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley, and "Claire Clairemont and the Shelleys," about Mary's step-sister, who came along with Shelley and Mary when they ran away from England.

"Mad, bad and dangerous to know." That's what Lady Caroline Lamb had to say about 18th century poet Lord Byron. It was also the theme for the February 11, 2011 library, theatre and English department poetry slam. Click here for more details. Click here to see photos from the event: Poetry Slam 2011.

Lord Byron1788-1824

Stalked by early paparazzi, claiming hundreds of lovers, both male and female, poet Byron was the ultimate 19th century rock star. Recognized as a Greek national hero when he died of a cold while fighting for Greek independence, it was Byron who discovered Percy Bysshe Shelley’s drowned body, with a copy of John Keats’s Lamia in a pocket, near the Gulf of Spezia and burned Shelley on the beach. Byron’s heart is buried in Greece. (Sources: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 143, 208 and 209 and The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

George Gordon, Lord Byron1788-1824

Mary Shelley1797-1851

Daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was 17 and he was married to another woman—Harriet—who was pregnant with the second child of their marriage. Mary wrote Frankenstein one dark and stormy night when sharing a cottage in Geneva, Switzerland, with Shelley, Byron, and Dr. John Polidori, all of whom also attempted ghost stories. By age 21 Mary had written Frankenstein, and given birth to and buried three children. By 25 she was a widow and raising her one surviving child—also named Percy. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 117, 145, 194 and 209.)

Mary Shelley1797-1851

Percy Bysshe Shelley1792-1822

Poet, philanderer and pyromaniac, he eloped with his future wife Mary Shelley and her step-sister Claire Clairmont, leaving behind his wife Harriet who was pregnant with their second child. A hypochondriac, Shelley suffered from sometimes violent and disturbing hallucinations. He drowned in the Gulf of Spezia, with a copy of Keats’s Lamia in his pocket, after falling from his boat (named Don Juan after Byron’s epic verse). Shelley’s heart is buried in England. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 141, 142, 148, 206, 208 and 209.)

Percy Bysshe Shelley1792-1822

John Keats1797-1799

A literary giant among the Romantic poets, Keats was remarkably well behaved. He belongs with the Romantics for his genius, but not for his reputation. In love with Fanny Brawne, who he could not marry because of his poverty, subject of the recent movie Bright Star, Keats died of tuberculosis at 25. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 168 and 176.)

John Keats1797-1799

Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772-1834

Famous as one of the Lake Poets and a founder of the Romantic movement, gambler, alcoholic and opium addict, Coleridge first took laudanum—a mixture of alcohol and opium—for rheumatic fever while still at school and struggled with it for the rest of his life. Coleridge and William Wordsworth started a poetry revolution, writing Lyrical Ballads together. Once a brilliant poet, later in his life he became worn from drugs and considered checking into Bedlam. (Sources: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, p. 24, 40, 68 and 69 and The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, p. 1806.)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772-1834

William Wordsworth1770-1850

Famous as one of the Lake Poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge started a revolution in poetry, writing Lyrical Ballads together. A founder of the Romantic Movement, he outlived Coleridge and other Romantics and was poet laureate of England at his death. (Sources: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, p. 243 and The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, p. 1806.)

William Wordsworth1770-1850

Mary Wollstonecraft1759-1797

Writer, feminist and mother of Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft tried to kill herself over her affair with Gilbert Imlay, who rejected her after she gave birth to their child—Fanny. Wollstonecraft had had a previous affair with artist Henry Fuseli. She married William Godwin when they discovered she was pregnant with his child. Wollstonecraft died shortly after giving birth to Mary. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 112 to 114.)

Mary Wollstonecraft1759-1797

William Godwin1756-1836

Philosopher, writer, book seller and father of Mary Shelley: Godwin, a proponent of free love, married Mary Wollstonecraft when they discovered she was pregnant with his child. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 111 and 112.)

William Godwin1756-1836

Claire Clairmont

Mary Shelley’s step-sister, who had run away from England with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, pursuing Byron, eventually becoming obsessed with him and bearing him a daughter—Allegra. (Sources: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, p. 119 and The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

Claire Clairmont

Augusta Ada Byron

Byron’s daughter with Annabella Milbanke, who along with Charles Babbage, invented the Difference Engine—a kind of early computer. (Source: The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

Augusta Ada Byron

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Annabella Milbanke Byron

Byron’s first wife, who he married in 1815 and separated from a year later and with whom he had a daughter: Augusta Ada. Annabella fled the marriage after Byron pointed a gun at her and told her (while she was in labour) that he hoped she and their baby would die. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, pp. 130 to 133.)

Caroline Lamb wrote about her 1812 affair with Byron in her book Glenarvon. Obsessed with him, it was she who declared Byron “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” (Sources: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, p. 124 and The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

Lady Caroline Lamb1785-1828

Augusta Leigh

Byron’s half sister with whom he may have had an affair in 1813 and whose daughter Elizabeth Madora may have been Byron’s child. (Sources: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, p. 126 and The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

Augusta Leigh

Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford

Had an affair with Byron in 1812-1813. (Source: The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

Jane Elizabeth

Countess Teresa Guiccioli

Byron’s last great love was married to another man when she began her affair with him and eventually left her husband for him. (Source: The Life and Work of Lord Byron 1788-1824.)

Harriet Westbrook Shelley(not pictured) Percy Shelley’s first wife, whom he left for Mary while Harriet was pregnant with their second child, committed suicide. Her body was found floating in the Serpentine River, by then pregnant with another man’s child. (Source: Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets, p. 148.)